


Gimcrack

by MisterPseudonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6840958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterPseudonymous/pseuds/MisterPseudonymous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thousands of years after the world ended—after heaven came falling down—the last bastion of humanity is naught more than a grandiose but withered tree. When a dragon emerges, all fire and ire, a ragtag group assembles to slay it and mayhap find a way to restore the dying land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gimcrack

Gimcrack  
Prologue

In the crevices, in the cracks of the fallen sky, they raised glasses high. Filled to the brim with foul wine, they toasted to the days of yore. The lot of them, crooked and malformed, grotesque and wretched feasted at a dusty banquet table—lopsided due to a broken leg—as they have done for more than a millenia. 

But Lacrizde raised his fetid glass half-heartedly, all the while wondering how deformed his own visage must surely be; how long would the fallen gods celebrate his ultimate folly. He closed his eyes and reminisced how sweet the wine used to taste.

*** *** ***

With the finesse only attained through years practice, they climbed the weaving, sloping roots of the Aesic Tree—via carved footholds and sturdy vines—to reach the summit. From the high vantage, they looked out. Beyond the sparse homes nestled amongst the sprawling roots, toward the unknown gray and turbulent, cloudy sky their eager gaze soaked it all in. They itched for adventure and conquest. Brandir and Kynwood desired little else other than earning a worthy name.

The brothers imagined felling monsters and undead alike, of finding treasure from the old cities, of carving their legend on the Tree.

*** *** ***

He awoke in darkness with the scent of old rot and stagnant air filling his lungs. His memories a disjointed mess, he could not even remember his name, but he knew that the cold permeating his bones went against his very nature. He was a dragon.

The dragon felt an emptiness, a void in his soul, but there was also anger—an old anger that he could not place a reason. But how his heart raced with fury!

He roared, shooting flames to the sky.

*** *** ***

Tierronie Briarthorn was troubled. She rotated the amber ring on her finger subconsciously. The Tree could not provide forever, but the other priests and priestesses did not share such a sentiment.

Walking briskly to her quarters well within the grand hollow that served as a temple to Aesic, the one true god, she ignored her fellows’ frowns—their disdain at _her lack of faith_.

Without delay, she reassessed her pack, filled with the necessities of traveling and wasted many minutes rummaging for her personal trinkets that she could not bear to part with… until she acknowledged that she was merely procrastinating.

Tierronie inhaled a shaky breath and closed eyes in prayer. She became aware of the roots, the branches, the bark, the Tree—she sensed the presence of her god—but the priestess went deeper than the surface; to when the Tree was but a sapling and the world much different. All was chaos, death, and confusion. Returning to the present, she could feel same emotions emanating from the Tree still.

Their withering beliefs cannot thrive on such adversity. No, Tierronie Briarthorn did not lack faith.

*** *** ***

An ember escaped the campfire, and she hurriedly stomped it out. Far from content, Kh’tuya secured even more rocks around the, in her opinion, unruly conflagration. Crisis averted, the cloaked girl returned to skinning her small game. 

The dead murmured, words indecipherable.

Kh’tuya, long used to such whispers, simply pondered if the scrawny hare’s hide would patch the hole in her cloak—comprised the flesh and hide of all that she killed—completely.

But then she witnessed a great plume of fire burst into the sky. She froze in abject horror, not once noticing another perilous ember escaping the ring of stones.


End file.
